Bye Bye Blackbird
by GryffindorCriss
Summary: In this quiet moment, she wasn't an Auror preparing to fight a war – she was quite simply a mother, singing to help her children sleep. (Or: "Newt returns home after a dreadful meeting with the Ministry and sees a rather heart-warming sight involving his wife and their daughter. He then receives quite a wonderful piece of good news.")


**I want to thank LadyBaelish27 on AO3 for the song idea – I want to recommend that you all read her story "A Very Decent Man" on AO3; it's amazing and beautiful and honestly just…wow. The idea in this chapter partly came from her fic, so I hope she doesn't mind me borrowing it for my oneshot. Honestly, PLEASE read it if you haven't already, it's one of the most beautiful Newt/Tina fics I've ever had the pleasure of reading!**

 **This kind of follows along with the events of "Phoenix" and "Linnet" (the latter especially), but it's not obligatory to read those first.**

 **Other than that, enjoy!**

* * *

Newt _really_ disliked having meetings; not only were they usually rather dull, but they more often than not required him to actually speak to other people – something that he still felt rather uncomfortable about doing. Book signings were just as tedious and ridiculous to him, but at least he usually had Tina with him for those – not today though. No, today she had taken the afternoon off work to be with the children while he went to his meeting: usually he was the stay-at-home parent, bringing the children down into the case with him while he worked or looking after them, but today had been a rare exception.

The meeting had been, as expected, uncomfortable for him; almost nothing had been achieved except for the agreement that a group of dragons were to be shipped off to Eastern Europe for the war – a plan that Newt had tried his best to thwart but now failed. In his mind, it seemed almost-cruel to send dragons to countries foreign to them; he'd seen that many of them were chained up and locked away in the war, only let loose to create havoc and destroy things, to kill enemies. He had argued that it would be kinder to leave the dragons in their own habitats, to instead find some other way to win the war against Grindelwald – but they had merely shaken their heads at him and disagreed, as if it hadn't been there.

Absolutely exhausted and drained from his lost fight, Newt apparated to the outskirts of the wooded area just outside his family's home; the children would both probably be asleep by now and he doubted that Tina would appreciate him waking them up – besides that, it allowed him the chance to visit the hippogriff paddock on the way up the path to the house and see that they were settled for the night. As expected, all but one were resting – Ginger, one of the few he had recently rescued and rehomed, was still walking about the space, flapping her wings.

"Alright," He murmured to her, bowing to her when she looked at him; he waited until she also sunk into a bow before straightening up and approaching. "There, girl, it's alright…it's night now, so I think you should settle down a bit." He gently brushed her feathers, careful to avoid the tender scars he knew she had; she calmed at his touch, instantly relaxing. "That's it…come on, lie down with the others."

Ginger was a tough hippogriff to handle sometimes, but she listened to him more often than not; sometimes she listened to Tina if she was in an agreeable mood, but Newt strongly suspected that it would take a while for the hippogriff to completely recover from the abuse she had suffered in the past. When he had found her, locked in a shed and shackled, she had been beaten and starved: it had upset him greatly, knowing that she wasn't the first, knowing that there were wizards and witches out there who could be so cruel to such magnificent creatures.

He was as quiet as he could be when he opened the front door to the house, carefully shutting it behind him before slipping out of his coat and hanging it on one of the coat hooks. There was a calm quiet that had settled over the house, he noted, save for the soft sound of a voice upstairs; he immediately recognized it as Tina's and smiled to himself as he started to climb the stairs.

The door to Linnet's room was open, and when he peered in he saw his wife standing by the little cot; she was humming to herself, and on closer inspection he realized that she had their daughter cradled to her chest.

" _…Where somebody waits for me…Sugar's sweet, so is he…Bye, Bye Blackbird_ …"

He recognized the song as being a rather popular one that was played over the radio and in bars often and couldn't help but grin; the idea of his wife _singing_ their daughter to sleep was both unusual _and_ heart-warming. He could see that Linnet was struggling to stay awake, head on Tina's shoulder, but she was putting up a fight all the same – she was a stubborn little girl, even at a year and a half old.

" _No one here can love or understand me…All those hard luck stories they all hand me…_ "

Tina's voice was wavering just a tad but still lovely all the same – then again, Newt loved hearing her voice no matter what the reason. Even though she wasn't facing him, he could tell that she was most likely smiling to herself; she was rocking the toddler just a tiny bit, trying to lull her into a gentle sleep, one hand holding the girl up and the other smoothing down the reddish-brown hair on her head.

" _So make my bed, light the light…I'll arrive late tonight…Blackbird, bye bye._ "

He was fully intending on just watching and taking the sight in silently, observing her like he did with other magnificent creatures, but a floorboard creaked underneath him when he shifted his weight. Tina turned around, still humming, to look at him; as he had suspected, she was smiling.

"The meeting's over and done with then?"

"Yes," Newt agreed, stepping into the room – there was no point in hiding now, after all. "Rather tedious affair, I must say. Wished I was here with you three the entire time."

She laughed then, quietly so as to not disturb the toddler in her arms. "I thought so. Phoenix was so exhausted after playing Dougal that he fell asleep straight away. _Linnet_ , however…"

"Not quite as eager?"

Tina hummed in agreement. "You could say that. I managed to get her to sleep for twenty minutes but then she woke up and…well, nothing has made her fall asleep again yet. In the end I thought I'd give singing a try – Queenie says it works like a charm."

"Well, don't let me disturb you," Newt said, and he grinned when Linnet looked over at him sleepily. "It'd be best to get her to sleep – don't want her to be cranky tomorrow."

"It shouldn't be too long now," She murmured, starting to rock their daughter on the spot again. "Hopefully she'll have fallen asleep by the time I finish the song."

He could only watch as she started to sing again, voice soft and gentle, absolutely enamoured by the image; it seemed silly, in hindsight, that seeing his wife singing their daughter to sleep would make him fall in love all over again, but it did. Perhaps because, in this moment, she was soft and warm, so relaxed – he knew that work had been creating more stress than necessary for her, forcing more teams out on more patrols. There was even talk of the best Aurors being sent to Eastern Europe to either assist in protecting citizens or to help fight Grindelwald's followers – and Tina was one of the best in the department, he knew.

In this quiet moment, however, she wasn't an Auror preparing to fight a war – she was quite simply a mother, singing to help her children sleep.

Queenie's advice seemed to have done the trick; in no time at all, Linnet was closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep, one hand clenched around the fabric of Tina's blouse while the other curled into her chest. Tina was still humming tunefully as she lowered the toddler into her cot, careful not to disturb her as she gently pried the little fingers away from her clothing. "Goodnight, Lin…sweet dreams."

As she straightened up, Newt couldn't help but grin at her crookedly. "I think you'll have to try that more often – I've never seen her go to sleep so willingly."

"I'll have to thank Queenie for giving me the idea," She agreed as they quietly left the room; she shut the door behind them, careful not to let it bang, and let out a low sigh of relief. "I'm glad they're both asleep – it's been a _long_ day."

"For us both," Newt muttered, trying not to wince at the memory of his meeting earlier. "I'm never doing anything like that awful meeting again – I thought that perhaps they'd listen to reason, even see how cruel it would be to just use these dragons as weapons…but I don't think I got my point across at all."

"It was that bad?"

"Absolutely dreadful."

Tina was nodding in understanding, and she put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry to hear that; I know that it upset you to see how dragons were treated in the first war."

"You know, the only positive from that was that I had been working with them," Newt sighed, shaking his head to himself as they walked to their bedroom. "I had always wanted to see dragons – but not like that. Not chained up and trapped until they were needed. Do you know how the goblins in Gringotts trained their dragon?" When she shook her head, he frowned to himself. "They've taught it to flinch at the sound of a bell – when it hears the bell it expects pain, so it cowers away."

She looked both shocked and concerned by this. "That's awful," She stated. "I don't understand…dragons can be dangerous, yes, but there's no need to treat them like…like _that_."

"No, there's really not; if we just left dragons alone, left them in their habitats, left alone their families and didn't try attacking…there'd be no problems. Dragons were here on this earth long before humans, I can assure you…"

Tina simply watched from their bed as he stripped himself of his bowtie and waistcoat, hair more tousled than ever; it was clear he was extremely upset by this news, almost disappointed in _himself_ for failing to prevent these plans from taking place.

"I have a briefing tomorrow morning," She said suddenly, and he froze on the spot. "There's been a series of disturbances in Bristol that the Ministry wants us to check out…but that's not all." He turned to look at her inquisitively, somewhat worried. "They've asked me to be a part of a group that are going to Bulgaria next month – to fight."

"Oh." Newt was quiet all of a sudden, eyes focused on her intently; he could remember the last time she had been sent overseas to fight, and it wasn't anything that he ever wanted to relive. "I see. And what did you say to that?"

She tucked her hair behind her ear, avoiding his gaze. "Well…I told them I'd consider it, but…but I wasn't sure. I mean, Phoenix and Linnet…"

He already knew what she was thinking without her having to say it; she wouldn't want to be away from the two of them, not while Phoenix and Linnet were so young (three and one-and-a-half-years-old respectively). She was clearly torn over the matter.

"I want to fight and do the right thing," Tina added hurriedly. "But Phoenix and Linnet need me too. Besides, I…I visited St. Mungo's during my lunch hour before I came home, and…"

Newt was instantly alert at this, coming to sit beside her on the bed; he put a hand on her cheek, touch soft, as he looked her over. She didn't look particularly unwell, at least not to him, but there was certainly something bothering her.

"Tina, love, why did you visit St. Mungo's? Is everything alright?"

"Yes. Yes, everything's fine," She assured him quickly. "It's just that I've been feeling slightly nauseous for a while now, so I thought it would be safe to check and…" Her face slowly split into a wide smile, eyes just a tad teary. "I'm pregnant. We're going to have another baby."

Newt suddenly felt far more alert and awake than he had _all day_. "A baby…Merlin…That's _brilliant_!" He kissed her then, hard and straight on the mouth; he felt her responding eagerly, hands pulling him closer and twisting in his hair. "Brilliant," He breathed when they broke away, already leaning in for another kiss. "You're absolutely _brilliant_ , Tina."

Tina was laughing against his mouth, the smallest of tears making its way down her cheek. "I'm glad you're pleased."

"Oh, I'm more than pleased!" He assured her, and he was suddenly leaning over her, hands roaming to rest on her waist. "I'm _thrilled_ …amazed… _ecstatic_ …" With each word he pressed a kiss to her neck, his hair falling into his face once more and his eyes burning. "That makes three…that's a _wonderful_ number, isn't it? Three children…We can turn the guest room into a room for the baby, of course, no use in putting a room to waste…"

"We still have seven months left," She told him bemusedly, arching just a bit into his touch. "There'll be plenty of time for that later – for now, though, I think that perhaps we should… _celebrate_."

Merlin, he loved this woman.

* * *

 **I don't care what anyone else says, I believe Newt was absolutely bloody thrilled with every single pregnancy/baby, regardless of the number it was or when/which point during the war. This is Newton "Mummy's Here" Scamander – he'd have been only too ecstatic to find out he and Tina were having another child. It's like with his creatures – the more the better!**

 **Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed, and I'd love to hear your thoughts! :D**


End file.
